About Martin H. Duke

Martin joined the blog in Fall 2007 and became Editor-in-Chief in 2009. He is originally from suburban DC, but has lived in the Greater Seattle area since 1997. He resides with his family in Columbia City and works as a software engineer in Lower Queen Anne.

Interesting. Zoom in, and it’s labeled as a bus stop only. Maybe the bus stop in the other direction is just a sign on the street. They only need a bus station north bound to avoid blocking the bike lanes.

Terminating at Seattle Central Community College seems like the smart thing to do until there’s money to fund the Aloha extension. From there you’ll be able to access Link without having to cross traffic on Broadway. 650′ is an 1/8 of a mile, half a city block. Move the stop north and you’re farther from Pine. The streetcar does a lot more for mobility on First Hill than a single mineshaft with a Link station would.

1/8 of a mile is a 2-3 minute walk. Though quite close for first-leg transit access, most professionals and those who study human behavior find this to be unacceptably far for a modal transfer, especially if that transfer is “out-of-system” (on a surface street, in varying weather and lighting conditions, and involving cross-streets).

There are already stops between Pine and Pike, so the distance from this one to Pine is irrelevant.

I agree with the first thing you wrote, though: they had no business building a permanent-feeling stub on this thing until the Aloha Extension issue is settled. Building this stub on the following block would help transfers to the 8 but would make transfers to the subway even worse by adding an extra traffic signal plus the track-merging timesuck. With the extension in place, the trolley can continue in the straight lanes to stops right on the SE and SW corners of John/Olive, for the easiest of transfers between all modes.

If that’s true, does that also apply to trolleybuses? Do any deadheading #10s use Broadway–>Pine to get to their 15th Ave terminus? If so I guess they could use John/15th or 13th/Pine/15th without any hassle.

If a 2-3 minute walk is unacceptable for a mode transfer then we might as well give up on Link and plan for the return of the DT Bus tunnel because it’s going to be at least that long to get off the train and hike up to 3rd, 4th or 2nd. If you’re not prepared to walk a couple of minutes in the rain then you’re not a very likely transit rider in Seattle because your destination is likely to be farther than that from a transit stop. Not stopping at Seattle Central would be silly and so would an additional stop just a few hundred feet up the road. Crossing Pike/Pine would likely add at least 2-3 minutes to each round trip as you’d be crossing a very busy intersection twice for really very little benefit. You’d sit, or stand, in the streetcar for 1-2 minutes instead of walking 2-3 minutes. Hardly a deal breaker.

We aggressively try to minimize walks to transfer. 150m is the high end in my view. Beyond that you need moving walkways. — Jarrett Walker

Bernie, it is established fact that people have less tolerance for great distances at transfers than to/from an origin/destination point at the start/end of a trip. Once people “enter the system”, they want to feel like they can keep moving along on the way to their journey’s end. Long transfer distances inherently interrupt that.

And yes, the massive overbuilding of the DSTT already accentuates the transfer penalty and acts as a deterrent, which is why people throw hissy fits when their bus doesn’t traverse the CBD end-to-end.

150m is the high end in my view. Beyond that you need moving walkways. — Jarrett Walker

The guy needs to get a grip! It’s farther than that from one end of the Bellevue Transit Center to the other.

Just don’t see Broadway and Olive/John being a huge transfer point. John ends at 15th. Olive and Pine form a one-way couplet downtown. People can choose to go either direction on the streetcar with loads of connecting routes. Seriously, for most of what you would access from an east/west bus connection you’d get there faster just walking. There’s bigger fish to fry. ST went as far as the funding. Would you prefer they do nothing until the City can come up with funds for the Aloha extension?

So I think clearly the best solution (when they extend the streetcar) is a center platform at Denny with an escalator directly into the pedestrian tunnel for the Link station. That way you could have one end of the streetcar platform take you directly into the subway, and have the platform be covered, so you never have to walk outside in the rain. At the other end of the platform you can cross Broadway at the Denny intersection to get to either side. This will make transfers from Link to points sound and north on the streetcar simple and not require crossing traffic ever or going outside in the elements.

Zach, at least when I drove, there were only a couple of 10s deadheading to Grandview, and they used Broadway -> Madison -> 13th -> Pine -> 15th. (Most of them went through downtown on 1st, being signed as an in-service 10 from 5th and Jackson.)

He’s one of the world’s preeminent transit consultants and an expert on how actual human being behave in relation to transit. Cities that ignore his basic principles of transit (and transit-service) geometry… well, they usually end up with transit that looks very much like Seattle’s!!

It’s farther than that from one end of the Bellevue Transit Center to the other.

Yeah, that sounds about right. Bellevue’s super-blocks are really two blocks long! If your daily routine required a bus that dropped you off curbside on 108th, and you had to walk to the other end of the transit center and down to a subway platform under 110th just to continue your journey, you would rightly consider that an imposition and a hassle!

Now imagine you had to that same walk every day, without the transit center canopy providing you weather protection or the sense that your journey exists within a defined facility. Now it feels like you’re making two unrelated trips — it’s barely a “connection” at all!

For an even better illustration of this, see Mount Baker Transit Center. But don’t go thinking that building transit center loops closer to connecting platforms is the solution. A figure-eight-ing bus is just as much of a timesuck/deterrent as a long walk; Tukwila Link is a textbook example of that mistake. The best transfers are perpendicular and on-street. On the closest street, not on the street two blocks over!

Just don’t see Broadway and Olive/John being a huge transfer point. John ends at 15th…

It is now clear that you don’t get to Capitol Hill much. Olive/John is the major transfer point for east-west service to Lower Queen Anne, the Denny Triangle, South Lake Union, East Capitol Hill, Montlake, and the Madison Valley. The Olive/John corridor does not end at 15th. And even more service is likely to be consolidated at this transfer point once Link is open. A significant walk to the streetcar from pretty much any connecting transit will only make this already-substandard boondoggle that much less effective!

Your right, I don’t know Capitol Hill very well. But the point of the streetcar was to provide 1st Hill mobility. It and U-Link are a game changer. I just don’t see riding the streetcar from 1st Hill up to Capitol Hill and getting a transfer on the slow boat using Olive and Pine being a smart move. Get on the streetcar and go downtown. More important than the Aloha extension it would seem to me is connecting this new patchwork of track with the SLUT down 5th or however. I do know enough from experience that trying to get from the eastside to Queen Anne from west of I-5 is just about hopeless. You might as well bite the bullet and just go downtown and backtrack.

Covered walkways are nice. They’re a good investment and have a low operating budget. But if Jarrett thinks a moving sidewalk would be a good investment at the Bellevue Transit Center he’s an idiot. An airport doesn’t put in moving sidewalks to cover 200m. Sorry, there’s just a lot of transit cheerleaders that ignore the reality that red carpet service costs boatloads of capital and that isn’t simply “printed” by government.

Rationally speaking, when planning a trip, at the end of the day, it’s the door-to-door travel time that matters. Whether it’s a 45 minute walk, a 10 minute walk + 10 minute bus ride + 25 minute bus ride, or 10 minute walk + 10 minute bus ride + 10 minute walk + 15 minute bus ride, the total time is still the same 45 minutes and that’s all the matters.

Whether walking happens at the beginning, end, or middle of the trip is completely irrelevant.

The one place where mode matters is reliability. Walking is slow, but very reliable. Riding a bus is less reliable than walking. And each connection involves waiting for a bus, which can involve unpredictable delays. And the potential for such unpredictable delay is always there whenever there is a connection, whether the walk between buses is 5 feet, 500 feet, or 5000 feet.

So, when you say that a walk distance at the beginning of trip can be longer than a walk in the middle of the trip, you’re really saying that bus riders are simply not rational.

But the point of the streetcar was to provide 1st Hill mobility. It and U-Link are a game changer. I just don’t see riding the streetcar from 1st Hill up to Capitol Hill and getting a transfer on the slow boat using Olive and Pine being a smart move. Get on the streetcar and go downtown.

I had thought the original purpose of the FHSC was to connect First Hill to Link, compensating the neighborhood for the loss of the originally planned Link station.

For people in First Hill planning on taking Link south of the International District, taking the FHSC to the ID, then transferring to Link at the ID station could make sense, but for people planning on taking Link to the UW, U-District, Roosevelt, or Northgate, first backtracking to the ID on the FHSC seems perverse.

Absolutely, there is an element of irrationality to how people approach transit! But believe me, this is not “me” saying this. This is “people who study and implement this stuff globally and have a really good sense of what does and doesn’t work” saying this!

People intuitively understand that reasonably frequent and good transit service can’t come right to their front doorstep. Thus the willingness to walk about to access transit, and the willingness to walk further for transit that is better. But — and I simply am not pulling this out of thin air — those same people do not accept additional hassles and impediments being thrown in their way at the transfer point.

If you think honestly about how you plan your own transit journeys, I’d bet you do this yourself too. Are you riding the 358 to 46th and then walking over to Stone Way to switch to the 16? Why not? Chances are the distance between them is less than the walk you do at either end of your trip, and there’s a decent chance you’ll catch an earlier 16 than if you’d waited downtown. Simply put, we want our transfer points to be points. We want the transit portion of our journey to feel psychologically unbroken.

Olive and Pine…

You’re still not intuiting the geography. East-west service from Broadway and John has absolutely nothing to do the part of Lower Olive that parallels Pine downtown. Think Denny. Which, in spite of the nightmare that is eastbound service at rush hour, actually provides a key westbound corridor most of the day and into the evening.

An airport doesn’t put in moving sidewalks to cover 200m.

Um, yes they do. Ever flown out of SeaTac’s A Gates?

Listen, you can choose not to believe me or the experts, but you will simply be wrong. The 130 meters from Westlake station to 4th & Pike bus stop (requiring only a single street crossing) is about the furthest that someone will be willing to walk out-of-system before getting grumbly about it. Nobody thinks the Westlake-to-SLUT transfer (a non-intuitive 150 meters) is handled very well. And don’t you remember the hell that broke loose when we tried to convince bus 2 riders that the reliability benefits of Madison/Marion outweighed the less convenient transfer to the tunnel? That transfer was barely 175 meters, and quite intuitive, but it involved crossing two intersections. People freaked the fuck out!

t for people planning on taking Link to the UW, U-District, Roosevelt, or Northgate, first backtracking to the ID on the FHSC seems perverse.

And nobody is expecting them to. We’re talking 1st Hill to Queen Anne. You either go north and deal with the terrible east/west fiasco or go DT and for about the same distance traveled get far more options and better reliability. It’s not an easy trip. Maybe if they’d just flattened the entire city while doing the Denny Regrade it would be or if I-5 didn’t exist but that’s not reality.

Listen, you can choose not to believe me or the experts, but you will simply be wrong.

Oh yeah, “experts” can’t be wrong; and you seem to believe you’re some kind of expert. These so called experts are making a living by schilling to the audience that believes what they want to hear. People using the Bellevue Transit Center every day defy the “reality” that you claim Jarrett exposes about needing moving sidewalks if the distance is more than 150 meters. How many real people riding the bus can tell you how many inches are in a meter? ST does so many things wrong why do you feel the need to seize on something they’re just trying to get done on budget and on time for once? Go find funding for your “improvements” and get back to us.

No one is making that long of a transfer at Bellevue Transit Center today. But if Link winds up beneath 110th and any connecting routes remain on 108th, they will be, and you can expect people to be extremely peeved about it.

If there’s one thing that you can’t say about Jarrett Walker, it’s that he “shills” to his clients by “telling them what they want to hear”. He challenges clients to define their priorities (coverage/frequency/ridership), explains the hard truths that each decision has its trade-off, and hopefully helps the agency to shape a service that does what its city want and needs better than it was being done before. I think its fair to say that Vancouver, (pre-cuts) Portland, and Bellingham have all managed to offer service a hell of a lot more effective for their respective sizes than anything you’ll find in the Seattle area. His work is a big part of why.

But believe whatever you want. You’ve never heard of him and you disagree with one rule of thumb, so he must be a “shill”. You’re just proving the sad adage about Seattle being a place where ignorance demands the same deference as knowledge, where facts and opinions are conflated, and where middling crap results.

Oy, I’ve heard of him and I’ve many times walked from City Hall to Bay #1 at BTC. And I know a bit about B’ham. Think there’s no compromises there? You’re picking a fight about an 1/8 mile walk to a bus stop, not a transit center, and trying to make hay about nothing. What’s happened to your crusade for wider stop spacing? Why not pick a fight about stopping a mega ton streetcar just to let on/off one or two people so they don’t have to walk that onerous football field distance.

Bellevue City Hall was the starting point of your journey, in that case. We just had a whole six-post discussion about how transfer distances are functionally and psychologically different from first-leg access distances!

And for all of the First Hill Streetcar’s flaws, it does at the very least increase stop distances over the current 49/9. There are no stops between Pine and the Link station, and between Pike/Pine and Madison. (The latter may even help to encourage future service consolidation of the 2 & 12 on Madison, since Madison will have a direct transfer and Union won’t. Consolidated service + direct transfer = a good thing!)

But the Olive/John/Denny/Link stop is the major transfer point for the entire line, and (for the time being, at least) the terminus of the line. How this possibly translates to you as “stopping a mega ton streetcar just to let on/off one or two people” is utterly baffling to me, and simply suggests that you don’t understand the geography nearly well enough to be taking such a strong stand on this!

At the top of E John & 15th is Group Health’s Central Campus which is a major destination. If one gets off the streetcar wanting to go to GHC, they would have to walk to John & Broadway to transfer to a bus or if hearty can walk the 6 blocks up the hill. The streetcar as presently configured would not really facilitate such a modal transfer.

Someone mentioned that people would have to stay on it for 1-2 minutes more. yes, people will do that. Think 7th & Westlake versus 9th & westlake on the SLUT.

Bellevue City Hall was the starting point of your journey, in that case. We just had a whole six-post discussion about how transfer distances are functionally and psychologically different from first-leg access distances!

Right, because I started my trip at City Hall that means BTC isn’t a major transfer point. Certainly not like the thousands of people hanging out on the corner of Broadway and John waiting to catch the 8.

At the top of E John & 15th is Group Health’s Central Campus which is a major destination. If one gets off the streetcar wanting to go to GHC, they would have to walk to John & Broadway to transfer to a bus or if hearty can walk the 6 blocks up the hill.

If you’re coming from DT which is most of the volume, or anywhere north or east, you’d never get on the streetcar. You’d have to be somewhere on Broadway in which case you have the exact same options you do today. Notice on the map there’s still bus stops. What does trip planner have to say about a trip from Yesler & Broadway to GH? Take the 9 and walk .4 miles from Broadway and John. Counting the walk time for both start and finish it’s a 23 minute trip. Change your preference to “minimal walking” and you get a three seat ride that doesn’t even use Broadway that takes 44 minutes. The 1st Hill streetcar, at least in it’s initial stage doesn’t serve the Group Health Central Campus. A streetcar isn’t a Star Trek transporter that can beam you where every you want that’s not along the line. Sure, if it extended another block it would serve more area; and another block yet more area. That’s why the City has plans to eventually extend to Aloha. But for the ST funded portion the terminus is the Link station which will be the major transfer point on Capitol Hill.

Because I started my trip at City Hall that means BTC isn’t a major transfer point…

BTC is a major transfer point. A major transfer point where every present-day bay is within 160 meters of one another, and within a defined, contiguous facility. Q.E.D., Bernie.

Think 7th & Westlake versus 9th & westlake on the SLUT.

I think Charles may be clarifying for me here a previous miscommunication, Bernie, in which you talked about stopping “to let on/off one or two” and I had no idea what you were talking about.

To be clear: no, I do not think the streetcar should stop at Capitol Hill station twice! I think that it should stop once, as close as possible to the station’s front entrance and primary transfer point, rather than at the station’s rear.

And doing so should not need to take any longer than it will already take to wait for a dedicated signal and to squeeze at a snail’s pace onto a stub track. Let the streetcar remain in the straight lane, and plow through Denny with the plenty-long green light. Until such time as the Aloha extension is funded, the stub track should sidle into the curb lane right here — closer to cross-transit, and also much closer to the subway platform It can activate its own signal phase to pull out and across traffic when it departs (which, I might remind you, it only does five times per hour).

BTC is a major transfer point. A major transfer point where every present-day bay is within 160 meters of one another.

This passes the reasonable transfer smell test. All of your attempts to use it as a counter-example (starting from your City Hall errand rather than from a connecting vehicle, comparing it to 215 meters on a regular city street, claiming that experts who measure this stuff have measured it wrong) fall flat.

Wrong, more like 200m from bay 1 to bay 6. That would be your hike if say you came in on the 560 and wanted to take the 234 to Overlake Medical Center or some other destination along the Medical Mile. Perfect, no but people manage. Would it be nice if the streetcar went another block north, sure. It would be nice to serve everywhere on Capitol Hill and 1st Hill. But as far as transfers it’s all about Link which will get people to DT and the U District in a few short minutes instead of the god’s age it takes to go anywhere on the surface streets. It will be interesting to see which entrances to the Capitol Hill Station are the most heavily traveled. It looks from the site plan that the street grid will or could be reconnected at Denny between Broadway and 10th. Would it make sense for the buses on Olive (8 & 43?) to add in a station loop to connect with the streetcar? My guess is probably not.

There are three primary purposes for the First Hill Streetcar. (1) Intra-line trips. (2) Trips connecting to Sounder/Link on the south side. (3) Trips connecting to Link on the north side (e.g., Swedish area to UW). Maybe the north station is further from the Link platform than it should be. Is that devastating?

Overall, no, it’s still a step forward. The FHS will still run every 10 minutes seven days a week. (The 9 and 60 don’t.) It gives a one-seat ride from Broadway to all Chinatown, which never existed. The signal priority will hopefully be better than the existing buses are. The 10-minute standard will hopefully cajole Seattle/Metro/ST to stick to that standard on future streetcar lines.

So then, we’re left with a transfer gap that’s something like half of SeaTac station to the airport. That will diminish ridership increases but it won’t eliminate them. If we can move the station closer to John Street, great, but unlikely. If not, a moving sidewalk inside the Link station would be cheap and effective. In any case, we can only accomplish the least-common-denominator between the transit activists, the governments, and the public. Let’s not let the perfect become the enemy of the good. The important thing is to keep moving forward in giving people alternatives to driving.

This is more like 215 meters from John, and that’s actually the same distance as SeaTac Link to the first climate-controlled bridge into the terminal. It’s a distance that we know people hate, but will put up with for what is inherently a journey over very long distances (getting to a remote airport, then flying).

As I’ve tried to explain, people are much more sensitive to inconvenient transfers for what should be a simple, intuitive city journey.

FWIW, I really can see streetcar-to-8 as being as useful a trip as streetcar-to-Link, and probably more useful than in the opposite direction (Link- or bus-to-streetcar, when there’s a such a good chance you’re better off walking your last mile).

I guess we just need to hope for the Aloha extension, at which point the tracks will have to be rebuilt — stupid not to design for that initially — and the station will move to the corner of John if anybody with a brain has a say in the design.

I find myself in agreement with d.p. again. The stop for the FHSC really needs to be as close to Broadway and John as is practical. John is the transfer point not Denny.

The only real reason I can see for the stop at Denny is it serves Seattle Central better than a stop at John would, but there is also a stop at Pike/Pine. Perhaps SCCC deserves its own stop, but just go ahead and put one right in front of the bookstore rather than a block from campus on either end.

Did you put that together? It’s seriously awesome to have zoom-and-scroll functionality for diagrams at that detail and scale.

(Also, I’ve been thinking about getting a resolution-pressure converter once the Android version is more mature, but it sounds like you’re not so happy with yours, so maybe I’ll pass. I’m also worried that if I look up a band from the 90s with one of those 400×300 Flash websites the low pressure will cause my phone to implode.)

The WFSL structure had an interesting form, unusual yet pleasing concrete-glass-steel proportions, fun and whimsical patterning, and plenty of pleasing green in its window-boxes. It provided a successful contrast and complement to Market’s other architecture, yet (unlike Denny’s) it did so without interrupting the pedestrian street frontage.

The parking lot behind the building also contained some stunningly sculpted bonsai trees. Not the greatest use of urban space, but better than the drive-up teller they’re putting in behind the new building so that a constant stream of cars will come and go across the sidewalk. Is there any American invention so lazy as the drive-through?

*(This is somewhat rhetorical. I actually do understand why people bemoaned the loss of Denny’s more. It’s because Denny’s is being replaced by condos! Evil, evil condos!! And it’s already so hard to park in Ballard!!! And so on and so forth!!!!)

I don’t know, Kyle. I have a hunch that the “brick work” is gonna wind up being a cheaply slapped-on facade. False “matching” is often worse than a building that acknowledges the time in which it is built and does something worthwhile with it. (I’m referring to the 1950s design, not the atrocious draft version to which you linked.) Even if the replacement turns out to be aesthetically acceptable, it will be just as fake as the Ye Olde Awneing next door.

Also, is that even a functional second floor, or just illusory/ornamental extra height like the building occupied by Blackbird (which replaced the gorgeous Sunset Hotel)?

Interestingly, as they took the wrecking ball to the 1950s building, one could clearly see the remnants of an older, slanted roof-line (complete with brick chimney), hidden within the concrete massing. It seems that the 1950s structure was itself a renovation/extension of something else from the early days of Market Street! Now all that — plus the bonsai trees — is dust.

The best thing they did was to eliminate the staircase up to the pedestrian alley that cuts through to the back lot. That, plus having the brick wrap all the way around the building, really grounds the entire building on to street level.

The low-slung glass of the 1950s building already rooted it at street level just fine. As for the pass-through: I’ve always assumed that was city-owned, and that the reason it sat at the same grade as the Carnegie Library was because that was the tract’s original grade.

Nothing (except for lack of will) ever prevented the city from regrading the pass for universal accessibility. A total tear-down next door was not a prerequisite.

“Maybe those who would compare their personal inconveniences to the epic struggles of history are just looking for company. And who wouldn’t want to be in the company of Rosa Parks. On the other hand, perhaps people who compare themselves to Rosa Parks are simply arrogant, pampered nincompoops with delusions of grandeur who couldn’t tell the difference between a paper cut and decapitation.”

1. From late this month for six months, all the 70’s will be rerouted via Eastlake instead of Fairview. Since this period is through two consecutive shakeups, will the changes be reflected in the timetable maps, timepoints and OBS stop announcements?

2. Lately I have been seeing artics on the 70 (both 2300’s and 2600’s). Does this mean that, after route 70 is re-electrified, we will see Bredas on the 70? (FYI: Yes, I am aware that the Bredas are unpopular with drivers and riders alike, it will not be for approximately another year and six months after the re-electrification of route 70 that the new trolleys will be delivered).

Changes lasting through more than one shakeup are generally put into the system, so I’d expect to see changed maps and timepoints. The OBS announcements arrived after my Metro time so I’m not sure how those will be handled.

The Breda fleet is already stretched pretty thin. Most of them are devoted to the 7, 43, 44, and 49. The few extras usually wind up on the most crowded runs of the 36. Lord knows the 70 could use them, but I don’t know where they’d come from.

Personally, when ordering new trolleys, I think Metro should change the balance of 40- and 60-footers, so that all trips on the 7, 36, 43, 44, 49, and 70 could be artics. Alternately, hybridize the 7 and allocate the extra artics to the other routes. The 7 is a terrible route for trolley service.

Top 40 radio was a thing of beauty. It’s amazing to see that a rock steady tune (by Prince Buster!) was actually getting air time here in ’67, along with everything else. And one Elvis song on the list, but no Beatles. KOL 1300 sure had something of an independent audio vision.

Romney’s attitude towards Amtrak typifies the attitude of Republicans in general towards transit in this country. It is also a major reason why I cannot stand the Republican agenda in so many areas. Republicans seem to feel that the only legitimate things to finance are anything to do with the defense industry. I reject this narrow-minded focus just as much as I want increased funding for Amtrak and not less. I have used the Coast Starlight some 14 times over the past two years and it has always been full – summer or winter. The Republicans cannot keep threatening Amtrak funding this way and expect it to invest wisely or efficiently – with this level of threat hanging over it, it all becomes a self-fullfilling defeat for all concerned, justifying yet more attacks in the future. I cannot see the Seattle Transit Blog or any of its readers possibly voting for Romney or McKenna for that matter come the November election….

It’s the faux libertarian contingent they used to capture young people in the party. They hate anything run by government, funded by government, subsidized by government…Unless it is a business receiving work from a government of course… It is also the basis for a lot of opposition to urban land use even though with people like Roger V wanting to use libertarian notions to further his agenda ideas. The car in their minds is ultimate personal freedom and a person with a car is responsible only to themselves for getting to the places their supposed to be on time. Never once do the recognize the collective damage their “individual” liberty is costing us all.

I will be voting for McKenna for many reasons. One of which is I feel Rob McKenna will watch out for my wallet – while Jay Inslee has an agenda to hike taxes w/o voter consent and do what the government unions want. It’s time to clean house and I just feel State Dems are out of feasible ideas. Of course had Theocrat Hadian won the nomination… different story.

Oh and a Governor Rob McKenna muckeying about Sound Transit? Convince me, and be prepared.

On the other hand: If I felt for one moment that Obama – who has no private-sector experience – would grow the economy and create jobs, Mitt would have likely lost my vote today. Amtrak needs reform and to cut costs, not be eliminated. The Amtrak Cascades – which I have used at least on five trips this year in Business Class, one of which all the way from Tacoma back to Mt. Vernon/Skagit – is used almost to capacity. It is a vital intercity link to this disabled person and I do doubt seriously it could be eliminated completely.